Tuesday, September 6, 2016

Dead Battery in the Jeep.

Going to get a fishing license today.

The plan today was to get a fishing license since we are going to spend a week at Davis Lake; so I would like to do some fishing.

I was going to get an early start but around 10:00 our friend Loraine stopped by for a visit. We visited with her for an hour or so, then she left.

Okay, now I’ll go get the fishing license.

Patti’s daughter Becky and her boyfriend Dennis showed up with some home grown tomatoes. Yumm They left after about an hour.

Okay, now I can got get the fishing license.

I went out and got in the jeep, turned the ignition. Nothing happened; no lights on the dash, no horn, nothing. WTF!!!

I checked the battery, 5.0 Volts. It should be 12V. Okay I guess I’ll have to hook the charger up to the battery. I found the charger and got it all hooked up. When the charger started charging it really pulled it down and after a short time the charger kicked off.WTF again!!!

Try a jumper battery.

I got one of the deep cycle Battery’s that I use at the cabin for the refrigerator and connected it to the Jeep battery with some jumper cables. I got the jeep started but it was idling a little rough and once I disconnected the jumper Battery the engine died. I had Patti come out so she could keep the RPM’s up by holding the gas peddle down. Now when I disconnected the jump battery the engine continued to run as long as Patti kept throttle at over 1000 rpm’s. After a while the battery was charged enough to keep the engine running at Idle but I had Patti keep the engine rpm at about 2000 to put a little more charge on the battery

Why did the battery die?

While Patti was running the engine I checked the voltage out of the alternator =13.03 volts. The spec for an alternator output is between 13.5v and 14.8v.

The alternator output is a little low so maybe that is why the battery is dead. I reconnected the Battery charger to the Battery and this time it seemed to work properly. I will let it charge over night then check again it in the morning.

Okay now I’ll use Patti’s car and go get that fishing license.

I got in Patti’s car and headed for the Coddingtown Mall to get to Big 5 Sporting Goods to get a fishing license. I drove across town to the mall and searched all over the mall for Bog 5 Sporting goods.

It wasn’t there! I didn’t know where they had moved to so I headed for home to regroup.

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Welcome to my blog.

My name is Marty.

My wife Patti and I are dirt road junkies. We live in Quartzsite Arizona in our motor home in the winter and love traveling around the desert in our jeep. We also have a couple of kayaks and enjoy flat water paddling.
Much of the Photography on this blog is Patti's.

In the summer we divide out time between traveling around the west and spending time at the cabin I built in the Northern California forest or working on projects at our home in Santa Rosa.

I occasionaly take a stab at writing fiction. You can read my latest effort "The Virgin Prince" by clicking on the links below.